I also finally got to unveil the firebird tattoo that Saturday night – having decided to keep her fully under wraps to all eyes until I hit the stage. When the time came to lose my leather top, I slid it off my shoulders and turned my back on the crowd. Dropped my head forward, hair tumbling over my face, and then let the satin slip slither to the stage, unmasking my flaming skin to them all. I’d specifically asked the lighting boys for a yellow spot to hit me at that moment and they didn’t let me down – I felt the blaze of color flood all around me as I waited there, frozen, hearing the cheers and whistles of appreciation from behind.
I had done it, I realized at that moment with a tear in my eye. I had survived, come through all my recent trials, and was now stronger – more independent – and facing a new and exciting future. The past was gone, and there was still everything yet to play for. I was still young, and fitter, more vital, and in better physical shape than I’d ever been in. I’d lost the last traces of my puppy fat and was rapidly toughening myself up.
I had just unveiled a new persona to the Klub, and one day soon, I decided, I would be their star attraction. Johnny’s firebird gave me a unique talking point, and I expected that before long, the word on the street would be, ‘You got to come and see the girl with the golden tattoo’.
Mr. Iko’s ink had been magical after all, it seemed: the Phoenyx had arisen from the ashes of her pyre. And in the second half of my set, with my firebird now revealed, I turned to face the crowd as a new person, someone they had never seen before – someone who was going to give them a different, memorable performance every time; never predictable, and always pushing herself to the limit.
The band might have been playing my old tune, but it was Irene Cara’s words which were in my head now:
Take your passion
And make it happen
Pictures come alive
You can dance right through your life
The sweat flew from me as I stampeded through the most furious, stormy routine I’d ever done, as though I was physically flinging away from me, along with the rest of my clothes, all of the bad vibes, the guilt, the fears, the sorrow that had been gathering over me since Tokyo. The old movements were gone, replaced by semi-improvised sequences of kicks, pirouettes and gymnastics which felt like I was back in school PE class again, showing off my flexibility and fitness to the whole school at the end-of-term exhibition. (If only I’d thought of invoking memories of that – my physical prowess, rather than my lack of the theatrical – I would have gotten off to a much more confident start at the Klub!) I got naked much quicker than usual, stripping off everything like the shedding of an old skin. The new one glowed and glistened and my focus was total and complete. It was a strange power which possessed me – more than mere inspiration or passion, beyond determination and commitment to being the best I could be: I was going to take myself to the heavens on the wings of Johnny’s bird. Although I knew that I’d always carry a little bit of Honey with me, as it was she who had helped to make me what I now was, and would soon become.
And as it all ended, with my back to the crowd again, both arms raised in victory and my inked spine burning with sweat and fulfillment, I soaked in the warmth and the response of the crowd, my own personal phoenix pulsing with power and energy.
“Thanks, Honey,” I said aloud as the cheers elevated my heart to the level of the divine.
When I came off after my set, I found all eyes staring at my back as I passed them by.
“Wow,” Gloria gasped. “Phoenyx, that’s amazing.”
“Move your big hair, I can’t see a damn thing,” Olivia complained, and stretched past her to lay a hand on my shoulder. “Oh my God...that must have hurt so much.”
“Not at all,” I said, smiling, as I sat down at the mirror. “This hot little Japanese guy did it in Tokyo. He said his ink was magical, so maybe he was right.”
“I could never go through that,” Mel pondered. “I hate needles so much.”
“Is that why your clothes are starting to fall apart, darling?” Olivia asked with a tug at Mel’s cuff, which was coming away from the sleeve.
“No, she’s just expanding and bursting her seams,” Svetlana offered as she passed by. Mel turned and made a two-finger gesture aimed at the Russian’s backside. I laughed as the conversation behind me drifted back into bitchy trivia, my glorious firebird forgotten. Nobody had yet noticed the change which was coming over me. The distraction of the tattoo had been too much, but they would soon see the new me. I leant over the dressing table to catch my breath – it was only then I realized just how hard I pushed it back there on the stage, and how good I felt about it now. If I’d tried that even six months ago, they would have been carrying me out in an oxygen tent.
I looked my reflection in the eye, and smiled at her. Going good, girl, I told her. We’ll get there.
A few weeks had passed and I still hadn’t really done anything in my new apartment beyond dusting and moving all of my stuff in, and the rooms were still piled with trunks and packing crates filled with clothes. I’d unpacked half the kitchen crockery and the bin was still stuffed with old newspapers because I’d never even found a minute to drag the thing down the stairs to the back door. Yet again I’d been lazy and put fun first at the expense of order.
When Bruno asked me how I was settling in, I suddenly remembered how much I still had to do.
“I’m getting there,” I said. “It’ll take a while. I’d rather focus on the new routines right now.”
“You do that. It seems to be doing you good, anyway.”
I smiled, trying not to think about Honey any longer. As the song said, Life is a cabaret. In a way, I could understand her decision: she wanted the same thing, and that was why she moved on, to cut her losses while she still had something to offer someone. In the end, I decided, we were just too alike to work as a couple – a butterfly and a fire bird – each wanting to fly and do their own thing in their own way. And that realization had finally begun to heal my heart, and given me the spirit to fly ever higher.
“Yes,” I sighed in reply. “It is doing me good. And I can feel it.”
“I’m still figuring out how to replace Honey and Petra. They’ve left a big, gaping hole on the bill, as if someone just fired a cannon at it. Petra is one thing, but Honey, I think, is irreplaceable. She was unique – I don’t think I’ll find another one of her too easily.”
“No,” I agreed, “None of us will, so there’s no point in even looking.”
That advice was as much for my benefit as it was for his, reinforcing the truth and reminding myself that what I once held in my hand was gone for good, and making me painfully conscious of my need to never allow another gift horse to bolt, should I ever be that fortunate again.
Perhaps if I was to go looking – seriously looking, as only a hopeless, heart-torn romantic can – I might still find her one day, sitting in a bar in downtown Tokyo, nursing a sake and wondering where she might find another Phoenyx. Perhaps I should have taken her own words to heart when she spoke of her lasting regret at never going back to her New York Stevie Nicks girl.
But despite all that, I accepted the bitter truth: that I had deserved to lose her. Some lessons are harshly taught but well learned, and make us wiser, more careful, and more grateful individuals as a result although I certainly didn’t feel like I had gained any of those qualities.
I blinked Honey’s silver stardust out of my eyes and gave Bruno a big hug. I took off upstairs to my rooms to figure out the finer details of my latest routine, something Petra would have been proud of. A little bit of Dietrich, a little bit Sally Bowles, and a lot of smoke. I got the idea watching some old movies on TV one night, and considered just how erotic a woman with a cigarette holder could be. I’d never smoked in my life – at least, not actively, and not since the days of Olivia and Alfreda’s parties – and I had no wish to start. But it was style and effect that mattered, and I could easily blow smoke around me in a close simulation of the
real thing.
It was Marlene herself in Morocco who convinced me to go out and try to find myself a top hat in the nearby junk markets, but I couldn’t find one in my size. I made do with a jaunty bowler instead, which made me laugh when I checked it in the mirror at the stall where I found it, and the old man in charge nodded at me with a big smile: it looks good on you. I confirmed that with a few sideways glances in the dusty old bronze-framed mirror which he held up for me. Through the grot and grime of ages of neglect, I saw a spark of something inspiring, exciting, invigorating – even if it was really just plain old me underneath, that silly old hat made me think of happier, more carefree times; times not only in my own life, but in the history of Central Europe as well, to the 1920s and those wonderful, heady last days of the Weimar Republic. Before a shadow of darkness stalked Europe’s soul, when, like me, she turned from a frolicsome girl into an emotionally-wounded and battered woman. And ultimately a survivor, sure, but not the same person she had been.
I stopped feeling sorry for the past – our past, Europa and I – and looked to the future. What had been wonderful once still could be again. Petra was right about that, in her own stubborn little way. Like boats, we human beings need anchors, no matter how tenuously those links may hold us, or else we drift forever through uncharted oceans, scanning every horizon for a hint of hope. And with the chances of being picked up and rescued so small, we need our islands, our mooring points, our ports, our points of reference and our havens.
Innocence can be easily lost, but with a little will, and suspension of disbelief, it can be enticed back, however briefly, by the trappings of simpler and more carefree times. And those good old days, however mythical and unreal they may have been in truth, were real enough to me to be my anchor when I was most in danger of being caught up in a Pacific sea-storm, on unknown co-ordinates somewhere off the coast of Honshu.
I was beginning to feel good about myself again, positive and excited - reborn, resurrected, revived.
I paid for the hat and shot off back home and got on with the business of figuring out the rest of my new routine. The hat would stay on until the end, I decided; even when I was stark naked, my head would be covered, that enduring symbol of antique cabaret, my face and body veiled so thinly by the decadent exhaust of overlong cigarettes in an equally elongated antique holder, which I’d alternately clench between my teeth, or wave like a magic wand, weaving spells of seduction around me.
I had gone through half a pack of Mores and filled my bedroom with dry, gritty smoke in the interests of entertainment when I decided to take a break and get some fresh air. I opened the main window and from out of nowhere, a black furry blur shot out through the gap, plopped onto the balcony and then vanished.
“Boris!” I squealed, but he was gone. The last thing I saw of him was his pink, pouting anus, winking at me as he showed exactly what he thought of me. I pushed the window up and climbed out onto the balcony – inconveniently forgetting that I was wearing only boots, garters and a bra – and by that time it was too late. The wind swept up between my legs like a lecherous groper and I just stood there, frozen in action, not knowing whether to stick or twist.
A man on the other side of the street stopped and looked up at me.
“Boris?” he shouted questioningly, perhaps wishing that he was so called.
“Sorry. But I’ve lost my cat,” I called back. I wasn’t sure why I was apologizing. For giving him an eyeful of my skin, for so brashly importuning a stranger as he went about minding his own business? For giving my ungrateful little shit-head of an adopted cat far more concern than he deserved at that moment? I did something I had very rarely done in my life of late, and covered up my delta of Venus with my hands, as best I could.
He kept on looking, perhaps struggling to figure out if this was some kind of joke. “I can see it pretty well from here,” he replied, and walked on with a laugh.
I stepped behind the stone planter and stopped showing off my vagina to the entire street. God knows what Bruno would have thought if he’d seen me giving away free samples on his property.
“Great. Thanks,” I snarled to myself, pulled back inside and drew the window shut again.
I thought about flinging on some clothes and hunting down the little pest, but it seemed he had made his decision. If he felt the need, then he would return. I was sure that he would find another kindly home to take him in and make his way with someone else, just as Honey would too, no doubt.
But only the bravest, the most heroic, and most confident – or foolhardy – among us can go full steam ahead with no anchor on board and no known destination, with only instinct and the fire of desire to guide them.
Perhaps Boris was a fearless explorer, adventurer and light-footed playboy of the Feline World. What did I know what he got up to at night when I was asleep, stripping off, or partying? Perhaps he had a harem of exotic tabbies all to himself, as Cat-Prince of Old Berlin; perhaps he lounged around his people’s equivalent of Monaco or Las Vegas in pampered luxury, or was as revered and well-regarded in his world as JFK, Onassis or Elvis Presley were in ours.
Perhaps he was the James Bond, the Robin Hood, or the Clark Kent of cats. These, and many other silly whimsies I shan’t bore you with, made my smile return to my lips and little warm tears lick at my eyelids.
Or perhaps he was just a stubborn little shit who had finally taken the huff with his inconsiderate maidservant and decided to find another more suited to his needs. In the end, it didn’t bother me, really, that someone else had chosen to reject me in a matter of weeks. I would still survive regardless, although I could see myself becoming a little harder, and a lot less trusting in the future. That was all part of that mysterious thing called ‘growing up’, which I felt I was still in some need of doing, despite my age.
If, on the other hand, he had made up his mind that he simply didn’t like my new apartment, then that was too bad – there was no way I was gong to move out, not without a damn good reason. And Boris had proved to be enough of a pain in my backside of late that he didn’t constitute such a reason in my book. He could sit on my head and claw my eyes out like something from the darkest pages of Edgar Allan Poe, and I would only dig my heels deeper into the ground and defy his petulant feline will with every atom of my being. All his spitting and hissing like an enraged rattlesnake would only stiffen my resolve. Big deep unblinking blue and green eyes of cute, furry seduction would have as little effect upon me as a morphine injection in a wooden leg. I would remain in my territory, and if he wanted to go off and find some more of his own, then c’est la vie. I didn’t want him to leave me, having had him around me for nearly half my life. But my mother hadn’t wanted me to leave either, although she still respected my decision in the end.
So it was that my Kitty Klub kitten chose to make his own way, just as I had, and I wished him well. I only hoped that I wouldn’t find him half-squished in a gutter on Freudlose Gasse some day, or I would forever bear the guilt around my neck until I, too, died, and found my tainted soul under the hammer of God for being so neglectful to an innocent animal in my care. St. Francis would never be my best friend, and I would be forever scorned and sneered at by all the pious souls with whom I’d shared my convent schooldays; I, the uncaring, selfish, materialistic bitch who went off the rails and abandoned everything she’d ever been taught and told to respect, the one who gave up eternal life with Jesus to wobble her tits at strange men.
Then something snapped back into place in my psyche, or whatever that thing is that sometimes keeps my troubled and scattered thoughts in check. Why the hell was I having a monumental spiritual crisis over my bloody cat? Had Honey’s departure shattered my sanity so utterly?
It wasn’t Boris who was to blame for the soul-searching. It was Honey herself which meant that she and I must have connected on a much deeper level than I had ever realized. I wanted to swipe every perfume bottle off my shelf and smash them, en masse, against the opposite wall in my rage. I clawed and
raked and spat and hissed at my infuriatingly smug inner voice: you wait ‘til now to give me fucking revelations? How was I supposed to know, I’ve never had a proper relationship before! You bastard, you could have given me a few hints, at least!
I turned to face the perfume shelf, feeling my shoulders and neck twitch with anxiety. Then I knew I was truly beginning to lose it. Smashing innocent perfume bottles in my stupidly blind rage would be no more fulfilling or helpful to me than running around the city, screaming ‘Boris! Come back!’ at the top of my voice, or diving onto the next plane to Tokyo to stumble around, blind and lost, in search of Johnny Tattoo and his old hermaphrodite flame. I made do by chewing my lip and gouging deep pink and white troughs into my palms instead, until I felt the cool drizzle of rationality begin to rain on my hot, addled head once more.
I approached the shelf as calmly as I could and took down one of my three half-empty bottles of No. 5. I uncorked and sniffed the contents, long and deep, as though it were smelling salts. And in a way, that’s exactly what it was.
I’d worn the No. 5 the day I first came to the Kitty Klub, not knowing what kind of world I was entering. I had worn it during my shopping trip with Olivia and on my first proper night on stage with her. I had worn it when I first met my future landlady in person, and again and again before any big, important meeting or event when I wanted to feel confident, proud, and have others like me. It had been my mother’s favorite perfume, and my thinking was that if I could acquire even a fraction of the worldly confidence that she showed to me, then I would go far.
And I would go far, farther than she ever did. I wouldn’t sit in the house nursing my illegitimate sorrows over a love lost, a husband surrendered to the Soviets; she did nothing to find herself a replacement, or a new father for her daughter. Didn’t even try. Had he been that amazing, that she could not even find the will to attempt the search for another?
That would not be me, I decided. I would not let the loss of Honey (or even Boris) break me, and consign me to a life of imprisonment within my own walls, a virtual nun who simply existed, who had lost the will to live in the widest sense of the term. My mother was smart, proud, elegant; she spent a lot of time at the mirror, and a lot of time putting on glamorous clothes and walking around the house in them, as though waiting for a knock on the door which heralded the arrival of a gentleman caller who would whisk her away into an exotic sunset and free her from the chains of devoted motherhood. She dressed for nights out when she spent nights in, and when she went out in the day she dressed down like a librarian, always long coats and head scarves, no matter the weather, almost as though she had decided to live anonymously before the eyes of the world, just as I had done recently.
Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire Page 22
